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[quote=flu][quote=spdrun]Wonder if there would be a market for renting out Title 20 compliant fixtures to new homebuyers till they replace with E26. 🙂 Seems that would be a lot more ecological than the homeowners just tossing the compliant fixtures into the trash.[/quote]

You mean kinda like if you fail smog, you borrow someone else’s catalytic converter?

Not saying I would do that, but some people asked me about it.[/quote]Not exactly the same. More like allowing people to use catalytic converters that don’t have the California EO number even though it brings the emissions into compliance. The CF would be used on the E26 socket (effectively the non-EO cat) NOTE: The same cat with the EO number is significantly more expensive than the one w/o the EO — even though they are basically the same cat.

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I haven’t had any problems locating those wierd plugin-types. They aren’t as cheap as E26 CFLs, but they are not too bad. They are external ballast CFs. Most hardware stores and some grocery stores carry them. Most of them will be the two pin type (GX23).
http://www.homedepot.com/p/Philips-13-Watt-Neutral-3500K-CFLni-2-Pin-GX23-CFL-Light-Bulb-146845/203430087
The four tube types are a bit more rare and more expense as well as being brighter.
http://www.homedepot.com/p/Philips-26-Watt-Neutral-3500K-CFLni-4-Pin-G24q-3-CFL-Light-Bulb-230441/100671133
http://www.homedepot.com/p/Philips-42-Watt-Neutral-3500K-CFLni-4-Pin-GX24q-4-CFL-Light-Bulb-220285/203430090

And for those that remember the psychedelic days:
http://www.homedepot.com/p/Feit-Electric-60W-Equivalent-Black-Spiral-CFL-Light-Bulb-BPESL15T-BLB/100553168

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I wonder if the GU24 versions of the CFLs are built ‘to fail’ for the purpose of profit. I am noticing several comments in other ‘blogs’ and ratings boards that these are failing fairly quickly. No such comments on the E26 CFLs, and mine have been lasting a while.

So we end up saving ‘CO2’, but putting mercury(a toxic heavy metal) into the environment (most people toss the CFLs into the trash instead of haz-waste disposal)

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[quote=flu]1. Despite what folks say about CFL, they don’t nearly last as long as folks advertise them say they do. I’ve been getting maybe 1 to 1.5 year out of them before they break (usually the ballast stops working)…[/quote]That is strange. I have been getting a lot more life with them. I do try to stay away from off-brand though. I think in something like 8 years, only two CFLs had had to be replaced. One was in my ‘trouble light'(portable light) that suffered an impact, the other was a high power (200 watt equivalent) CFL that was over 8 years old. Most of the lights in the house are CFL, with incandescents in critical areas (where full light is needed immediately – like one lamp out of several in hallway, one lamp in middle of kitchen overhead, one lamp near specific door access.). I pulled the other incandescents out and stored them as replacements for these. I didn’t worry about getting the ‘fast warmup’ versions of CFLs. I was concerned that it might stress the electronics (push higher voltage for a longer time to implement the fast warmup).
[quote=flu]2. While you can find CFL’s with the e26 bulb screw for traditional lamps relatively cheap at $1 each or sometimes even cheaper than that….A CFL with the GU24 base costs anywhere from $4 each to $8!!!! What a big scam….[/quote]Didn’t even know about the GU24 base. I don’t understand the reason unless it is to force people to use CFLs (don’t know of any incandescents using that base). All mine are E26s.
[quote=flu]3. Even ignoring the big scam price difference for CFL with a GU24 base….Disposing CFL’s is a PITA because they have mercury in them and should be properly recycled. Replacing them every 1.5 years to 2 to me doesn’t seem very green to me…..so…..[/quote]I have a box where I ‘store’ the bad ones (only 2 so far), but the hours for hazard recycling are a problem.

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I think he wants to sell it to someone who will build an apartment complex. He is bordered by apartments, so if it needs to be re-zoned it may not be a prob. Looks like there is some land with it (about 1/2 acre).

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[quote=joec]I really think in 5-10 years, people will look back on the ACA as probably one of the best (maybe only) things Obama signed off on…[/quote]
I would have to disagree. I would say that it will be seen as a good win for corporatocracy, particularly the insurance industry. If you look anywhere, they have their fingers in it, taking their slice. The amount they take may even be greater than the average per person tax rate. Insurance companies get their float as a non-interest bearing loan from their clients. A form of other peoples money – cheap. It does nothing to reduce the true cost, nor does it reduce the huge overcharging hospitals do. It just ‘entrenches’ it, making it harder to change later.

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[quote=flu]I think the weight difference is about 200lbs for the V8 conversion versus a stock 4 cylinder without all the extras of the turbo… [/quote]That is true. What is interesting is that 200lbs also includes replacing the trans with a heavier one (T56), the rear diff and suspension (from a CTS-V), replacement rotors and additional bracing. [quote=flu]For an autocross, turbos I don’t think really help on the miata, because the lag from the spool up and the extra weight from the extra add ons (turbo, intercooler, yada yada yada) would offset any gain from a stock miate running with lighter weight….[/quote]True, not to mention running the parts on turbo version closer to their strength limits, and more likely to break.[quote=flu]
The key to a miata in an autocross (I’m learning) is keeping the momentum… (I generally suck at things right now, still learning)…..

The V8 would be rocking on a long track like chuckwalla, though I would think I’d want to run a full cage when/if I ever decide to do that in a miata…[/quote]There is a recommendation for a cage on the V8 versions. I think BossFrog has a cage on their parts list. High horsepower also helps on short track, but you will wear the tires out and really heat up the brakes. If working on technique (carrying momentum through corner, entry and exit positioning), high horsepower could actually hurt learning – can mask bad technique through powering out.[quote=flu]
But quite frankly $43k for a V8 conversion (minus the $3-5k for the donor miata car) is kinda steep, unless you attempt to do it yourself… Not to mention dealing with CARB in california if you want to run it on the street….[/quote]The $43K also includes some of the cutting and bracing work as well as trans and rear replacement. When you start calculating all of the work that is giong into it at this level, it is not too bad. You have the option of buying the pieces and putting it together yourself. There is even a manual of how to do it on their website.

CARB has some interesting rules, one of the general ones for re-engining a vehicle is that the engine be of a same or newer year from the vehicle you are altering. It must be from the same or heavier vehicle (trucks etc excluded) with the same emissions requirements of the target vehicle. Test is done to the date of the engine.[quote=flu]And if you don’t want to run it on the street, you might as well stick a motorcycle engine in it instead, like

http://www.motoiq.com/MagazineArticles/ID/1519/Project-MiataBusa–Part-1-What-The-Hell-Are-We-Thinking.aspx%5B/quote%5DYes, but you will have a problem getting it close to what you can do with the original engine, then you have to worry about mating the motorcycle engine to the drivetrain. You can also go for a Miata race block[quote=flu]
Anyway… I went with the reduce weight option..First..Well, since I generally suck still at the driving part… Well, that and it’s cheaper to rip stuff out than put stuff in…

heh heh….Also need to lose the extra 15 weight on myself too…[/quote]The later will probably help with other things as well. Lightening is good. Also see what panels you can replace with carbon. Hood and trunk are the usual. You can go ‘stealth’ and paint them white like the rest of the vehicle…

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[quote=ocrenter]While fairness is important, the point is promoting someone with lesser ability (IQ or academic) into an environment they are not equipped to excel in ultimately leads to their undoing.

It is the law of unintended consequence.

As long as Hispanics are underrepresented compared to their proportion in the overall population, this admendment will be used to extract extra rights.[/quote]
And this is how education spirals to the lowest common denominator. The real fix is to address the cause, at the cause. That is fix how public education is run. Jaime Gutierrez proved it could be done. The fix needs to be applied before college. Public schools don’t want to admit to their failure, so they push the ‘fix’ onto Colleges.

We can’t compete against other nations if we are teaching to the lowest common denominator.

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[quote=spdrun]Yecch. I’d sooner take a turbo-4 than a gorilla V8.[/quote]
Really? I guess you are not too much into the real ‘specs’. The Miata cylinder block is cast iron and is generally a two bolt main cap on the crank bearing. The corvette engine is a LS block, which is an aluminum block with 4 to 6 bolt mains, two of them being cross bolts for each main cap. Because the LS engine is an aluminum block is why there is very little weight difference between the two.

Because of the two bolt main, there is a limit to how much you can boost the original 4 cyl before having crank/main problems, not to mention head gasket problems because of aluminum head vs cast iron block while under boost(different coefficients of thermal expansion). To even get close to an LS3, you will be over-stressing the Miata block and will sacrifice reliability.
–BTW, turbo Miatas come at around 170hp (nearly 250 if you want to risk parts), the LS blocks start above 300hp and run into the high 400s.

If you are doing autocross, it is better to have instant horsepower instead of time delayed as in a turbo engine (boost has to build up).

BTW: The actual gas mileage on the newer Vettes, is around 28mpg on the highway. The T56 trans has a double overdrive which drops the rotation speed of the engine to just above idle at highway speeds (approx 1700 at 75mph – depending upon rear axle ratio).

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[quote=spdrun]Reinforcements? Hah. Not sure if Oakland has enough cops to support that. Slime and paintballs would likely result in 10 people shooting back with real guns or throwing bricks.[/quote]At that point, a police shooting becomes justified. What happens if there is a gang rape in the middle of that group? Or if there is a gang rape after the cops leave? Or a murder? I have problems when police shoot someone that they ‘think may have’ a weapon, but once a weapon has been confirmed and it is being used to shoot at police, it is a completely different subject.

NOTE: It is very hard to even stand up on a surface once is has been slimed. It is like standing on banana peels on top of teflon.
[quote=spdrun]Hate to say it, but they did the right thing in getting out unless they were patrolling in a Northern Ireland style armored car — they’re not Royal Ulster Constables and one is paying them enough to be martyrs…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Oakland,_California#Comparative_police_staffing_levels%5B/quote%5D
I tend to disagree with your statements here. There has to be a point where they stand up to offense instead of bullying the unarmed. It is also ironic that they seemed to have voted down Armored vehicles:
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/No-place-in-Berkeley-for-police-armored-car-3686971.php

As for being paid, there are quite well paid for sitting in cars and issuing tickets. The pay is moe justified if they have to deal with risky situations like this (which don’t occur every day)

It is also possible to drop ‘slime’ from a helicopter, ie like a water drop.

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[quote=flu]Damnit.. I told you so.. I’m totally the contrarian indicator…

1. vlp 37.38/share after hitting all time high of 38.10
2. nxpi 55.60, after hitting 52week high of 56.24…

Need I say more?

I was kidding about shorting qcom. It’s just that I figure if I did things would go up, and I would like to make my friends richer who either work there or own shares….[/quote]
It looks like you are worrying too much about the short term. Be careful of buying into momentum (successive new highs).

VLP = master limited partnership, not your normal common stock. It’s only ‘real’ value is tied to dividends it pays. It also has a tax advantage, but considering the dividend size on this one, it really won’t factor.

http://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/mlp.asp

Doesn’t make me feel comfortable.. will still look a bit more into it later. Would want the prospectus from this partnership to really look into it. Want to know their holdings.

—

NXPI = Cash flow (operating activities) is lumpy, most recent year has a sizable increase over last. Most recent quarter drop concerns me. Need to look into it. Most recent year shows operating loss, big portion of it under ‘Total Other..’ which doesn’t make me feel good. If it is that big, bigger than other expenses.. is shouldn’t be ‘other’. Most recent quarter also shows a big sucking ‘other’.
Will look a bit more.

I actually use TDameritrade.. I am not your ‘lazy’ investor.. but I am not a ‘day-trader’. Tried day-trading for a bit, did just ok, but I didn’t like seeing my trades being front-runned. Level 2 quotes allowed me to see the trade ‘stack’, and I saw it happening.

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And this is from the regional area of California that has stricter gun control, than other areas of California.

The cops should carry something like ‘slime’, use paintballs with indelible ink or should have called in more reinforcements when the bottles flew. Running only emboldens these idiots.

http://www.examiner.com/article/oakland-shootings-show-uselessness-of-gun-control

On ‘slime’
http://beta.slashdot.org/story/23794

The other thing that gets me, is that many of these people are actually youths. Where are their parents in all of this?

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Umm.. flu, you should have used Linux to image the drive when you did the ‘upgrade’. This way if it craps out, you can restore the image. Best to do one right before the upgrade and one right after. The Linux imaging tools only backup/archive used blocks and leave the freelist alone.

You can use a CD/DVD based Linux bootable to do it, writing the image to a removable USB drive (or visa versa).

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[quote=flu]Lol. Sure. Though I don’t own either VLO or VLP anymore…. Sold VLO around 52.5 and sold VLP around 46 about 2.5 weeks ago….

Now I get to wait for the nice tax bill.[/quote]
Much better than having a loss/loss carryover. I’ll keep an eye on those two to see if the history repeats. I had BSTE(Biosite) quite a while back. Picked it up near the bottom before it got bought out. A lot of naked shorts on that one, that did not want to admit their screwup. Nice gain (big tax bill). I’ve had RMD for the run up too.. got too much of it (too large of a % of my portfolio – increases the risk too much). I should have re-allotted my account when I saw it at 55.
[quote=flu]Maybe I’ll short 200 shares of qualcomm just for completeness so some of you piggs will be able to afford your million+ homes when it passes $100/share…

And no worries, I’m sure we’ll see VLP go over $50 now and VLO go to $60…. Since obviously, it happens..after I sell….

Kinda like NXP Semiconductors which is over $50 now…[/quote]Interesting that you are considering shorting QCOM. I recently looked at S&Ps rating for QCOM.. using their ‘star’ rating.. it was 5, effectively a ‘buy’ rating. I’ll be looking into their 10K/Qs soon.

I’ll take a look at NXP in the next week or so.

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[quote flu]You get my point? Take a contrarian position to what I do. And you will do fine…….I don’t mind turning everyone else around me into great stock pickers with my contrarian indicators based on my own (lack of abilities)….You are welcome.[/quote]
So are you going to open up a thread where you post every purchase, sale or short that you make?

Logic clearly dictates that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few

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